Edsbacka Krog

One of the highlights of my trip to Sweden was a visit to the country's most acclaimed restaurant, the two-star Edsbacka Krog. Ironically, the restaurant is located a short walk away from where I lived as an exchange student in the town of Sollentuna, although I was blissfully unaware of it at the time (my culinary interests during the period focused mostly around kebab). My dining companion, Göran Lager, who I've mentioned here several times previously, is friends with the restaurant's well-known chef, Christer Lingström, and as I was also working on an article, we were treated very well.

We chose the avsmakningsmeny, the tasting menu, a eight-course extravaganza of taste that began with the following trio of Creamed parsnip with strawberry jelly, fish broth with basil foam, and asparagus soup with crispy pork:

Unusual combinations that worked together very well, as Göran's expression suggests:

The remaining seven courses included exotic ingredients such as pigeon and sea buckthorn, indigenous ingredients such as ramslök (kind of onion) and gooseberries, and challenging combinations such as marinated hälleflundra (type of fish) with a vanilla-lemon foam. I'm planning on printing some of the photos later, so I'd rather not run any here before they've had a chance to run. It was an amazing experience, and by far the best food-wine pairing I've ever had the pleasure to experience. Highly recommended--if you can afford it!

Edsbacka Krog
Sollentunavägen 220
Sollentuna
+46 (0)8-96 33 00

Pre-game nosh

While in Stockholm I accompanied my friends to a couple soccer matches. My friends are big fans of AIK, one of three Stockholm teams in the Swedish league, and hold season tickets. One of their pre-game rituals, other than two warm beer to cool their nerves, involves dinner at a kebab restaurant near the stadium in Solna. Having consumed kebab earlier on my trip, I followed my friend Ola's lead and ordered the "vegetable plate":

This took the form of various deep-fried veggies: eggplant, cauliflower, onions and falafel, served over a massive heap of saffron rice (or French fries), with sides of hummus and a yogurt sauce. The image above doesn't do a good job of illustrating the sheer vastness of the plate, and I was only able to eat about 75% of it. It was tasty, but incredibly salty, and at about $10, isn't exactly a "deal" for fast food, but that's Sweden.

Here's Ola devouring his:

He finished it.

During the game the only food option is korv, Swedish-style sausages:

a food I will soon document in detail at the Lonely Planet website.

To see more of the images I took at the game, go over to my newish photoblog, The Old Main Drag.

Derby: AIK vs. Hammarby

While in Stockholm I went to a couple soccer matches, including a derby between two Stockholm teams, AIK and Hammarby. My friends are hardcore AIK supporters, which gave me the idea to photograph the fan activity at an important match.

Lining up for the game outside Råsunda Stadium. The alcohol-related mess is indicative of the mood of much of the match

At the beginning of the match I stood in "knacken", the area reserved for the more hardcore AIK supporters.

Ultra-wide view from above

But the point of going was to photograph fans, so after a while I moved down to ground level.

Most interesting was the the fence directly behind the goal that, too my surprise, fans were more or less allowed to climb and stand on.

Rousing the fans

Security guards

AIK scored first.

and eventually won the match.

Afterwards, those standing in gnaget had to wait an extra 20 minutes before being released as to avoid any confrontations with Hammarby supporters.

Leaving the stadium

KB

A couple weeks ago Göran Lager and I took lunch at KB, Konstnärs Baren ("Artists' Bar"), a Stockholm institution. Located in a beautiful building from 1891 that also houses Stockholm's dramatic theatre, the restaurant is known excellent traditional Swedish fare and for its murals that cover the walls of the upstairs dining area:

But as you can guess, we were mostly interested in the former. The menu (shown in the first pic above) offers a short but very interesting array of traditional Swedish dishes based around indigenous ingredients such as shrimp, herring, salmon, dill and lingonberries. We began with gravade strömming:

marinated herring served on a slice of pumpernickel-like bread and boiled potatoes. Sounds like starch overload, but it really was wonderful, and thankfully, for me at least, the herring lacked the sweet taste found in most Swedish pickled fish. It was easily the best fish dish I had during my stay in Stockholm, and even the potatoes were delicious and perfectly cooked.

This was followed by raggmunkar, Swedish-style potato pancakes:

which were served with knaperstekt fläsk, bacon-like strips of ham, and a side of rårörda lingon, stewed lingonberries:

It was rustic, salty, oily, and hearty, and when topped with the lingonberries, sweet and a bit sour; basically everything I like in a dish. It also had the added benefit, according to Göran, of being an excellent hangover cure (I had been at a wedding the previous night...).

Here's Göran's take on the meal (unfortunately only in Swedish), which, as a bonus, includes a recipe for gravade strömming. Despite the utter simplicity of the dishes, this was easily one of the most memorable meals of my trip. I'd encourage any of you who happen to be in Stockholm to stop by.

KonstnärsBaren
Smålandsgatan 7 (off Biblioteksgatan, near Stureplan)
08 - 679 60 32

Please be patient!

I apologize for the lack of blogging from RealThai as of late. I'm currently in Oregon and haven't even caught up with all the blogs I'd like to do from Stockholm, which shows you how far behind I am! In addition to this, I already have plans to visit Borneo and Cambodia more or less right after I get back to Bangkok. In the meantime, I'll try to get my mits on a Mac so I can share a few more of the things I ate in Stockhom and here.

Saluhallen

Saluhallen, opened in 1888, is the largest and most famous of Stockholm's indoor markets. Located in Östermalm, traditionally the wealthiest part of town, you're not going to find any deals here, but the setting is amazing, and the products excellent.

This market is considerably more "Swedish" than Hötorgshallen, and inside you'll find more traditional Swedish staples such as potatoes:

herring to eat over them:

or even smoked eel:

Or maybe you'd rather have your potatoes fried with ham, as in the traditional Swedish dish, pytt i panna:

If you crave Swedish food but can't be bothered to cook, there's also prepared food inside the hall:

as well as baked goods to take home:

If you don't mind doing a bit of cooking, pick up some sausages:

It's all there:

To reach Saluhallen, take the red line subway to Östermalmstorg station.

Kvarnen

Found myself again in Södermalm, southern Stockholm, where just around the corner from Jerusalem Kebab you'll find a 99 year-old restaurant and Stockholm staple, Kvarnen. Friend and blogger Göran Lager invited me out here recently, and we had a great time, eating some excellent svensk husmanskost (traditional Swedish food) and chatting with the restaurant's chef and owner.

Göran suggested the havswallenbergare, a seafood take on a traditional Swedish meat dish (pictured above). Normally made from a patty of beef, this version was comprised of salmon and pike, and was served with mashed potatoes and peas and a hollandaise sauce. Although it was very simple it was very, very good.

Göran and I were almost equally impressed with the restaurant's excellent bread basket:

''

a reliable indicator of a good restaurant. The basket contained a variety of delicious and slightly unusual Swedish hårdbröd, which thankfully, was served with butter (most Swedes prefer margarine).

After dinner we chatted with the Kvarnen's chef, Mauritz Lind and the restaurant's owner, Thomas Steinwendr:

These are two guys who love talking about food (Mauritz worked at Edsbacka Krog as well as at a restaurant in Phuket for nearly a decade), and after we complimented their bread, Thomas brought us a few more that they're planning on including in the basket:

Restaurang Aktiebolaget Kvarnen
Tjärhovsgatan 4 (Medborgareplatsen subway)
08 643 03 80

Thai in Stockholm

I recently spent a lovely evening at the home of writer and food historian (and blogger), Göran Lager:

Göran lives in Sollentuna, the same suburb of Stockholm that I lived in when I went to high school here more than 10 years ago. He and I orginally had plans to take dinner at Edsbacka Krog, possibly Sweden's best restaurant, also located in Sollentuna, but our appointment was moved to Thursday (more on that later). Instead, we went back to Göran's house where his wife Rodjana, a native of Thailand (and a former employee of Edsbacka Krog), made us a wonderful meal.

We started with a teriffic tom kha kai:

the famous coconut milk soup with chicken. I never order this dish in Thailand, but think that Rodjana's has inspired me to begin doing so! This was accompanied by a spicy som tam:

The image of which was actually taken by budding food photographer, and Lager's daugher, Plaifah:

And finally, an absolutely delicious muu thawt, deep-fried pork:

Which was made from pork shortribs from G. Nilsson Livs, Göran's favourite butcher in Hötorghallen. Rodjana marinated these in fish sauce and coriander seed, and liberally sprinkled with deep-fried crispy garlic.

Thai restaurants in Stockholm are very expensive, and by all accounts, mediocre. If you're here and want Thai food, my advice is to become friends with a Thai--preferably one who cooked at a two-star restaurant!

Shadows, etc.

Interesting shadows, Östermalm, Stockholm

More wandering around central Stockholm has resulted in the pics posted here. Again, nothing terribly interesting (where are all the people??), but it was a slightly more productive wander than previous days. I'm still waiting for the nice weather to go out so I can take some boring postcard-type shots that I can sell as stock later. For now, I'm free to pursue the kind of photography I love, but am finding it hard to be inspired in this environment...

Emerging, Kungsgatan, Stockholm

Lunchtime, Sergelstorg, Stockholm

T-Centralen, Stockholm's main subway terminal

In looking back at these, I find that many of these and many of my other photos are far too symetrical, and a bit too 'distant'. I've also really been thinking about something David Alan Harvey recently said on his blog, "...to really make photographs that have the "authorship" of which i so often speak, the photographer must look inside....for it is impossible to be an author if one does not have anything to say...." I'll admit that in most cases I'm often simply observing, and don't necessarily have anything to say about Stockholm or the other places/things I shoot, which is probably my biggest obstacle...

Chess in the park

Taking photos here in Stockholm is literally and figuratively a world apart from taking photos in Southeast Asia. There's very little life on the streets, and the paranoia people emit when they see my camera is almost palpable. This is not to mention the cold weather and the fact that when I'm already familiar with a place I tend to have a difficult time seeing something new. Luckily there have been fleeting moments of sun and warm weather, and after the long, dark winter, people occasionally drop their guard and forget about the guy with the camera.

Such was the case yesterday in Kungsträdgården, a park in central Stockholm. The weather wasn't exactly warm (I overheard some Thai tourists complaining about how cold it was), but there were people out enjoying the sun, in particular a couple men playing street chess. I started out with this image:

The pic shows what was happening, but lacks dynamism. To make it a little more interesting, I moved to a different angle, closed in a bit, and tried to capture some of the movement of the game:

Not being entirely happy with this, I used the old trick of tilting the horizon:

and then cranked down the aperture to depict the movement:

which resulted in the best pic of the lot. I'll be the first to admit that this isn't much more than a mediocre image, but it is much more dynamic than the first, and I'm happy that I'm beginning to become more pragmatic about my photography. I also like the fact that I am slowly getting better at being able to pick out what I want to show, or what I don't want to show. Now if there was only more life here...

Hötorgshallen

As in most other big European cities, the residents of Stockholm buy their groceries at modern supermarkets. However the city still supports a couple examples of old-school market halls, which I'd like to feature on these pages. The first of these is Hötorgshallen, located in a basement below a large movie theatre smack in the middle of downtown Stockholm.

This being Scandinavia, you'll find quite a bit of seafood, including fresh:

preserved:

and ready to eat:

Other interesting looking local food is found at Saluplats 30, a stall selling the prepared dishes and ingredients of Sweden's neighbour to the east, Finland:

The food here looked delicious, and quite similar to traditional Swedish food, and I definitely plan on buying a few things for a picnic in the future. In general however, Scandinavian food is not the emphasis at Hötorgshallen, but rather other cuisines, including Greek:

Middle-Eastern, including these amazing salads and mezze:

and most predominantly, Turkish. Other than a couple Turkish delis and the obligatory kebab stall, there were also two places selling 'Turkish burgers':

These took the form of buns filled with various Turkish condiments. I found this too interesting to resist, and ordered a vegetarian version:

It was stuffed with deep-fried eggplant, grilled cheese, a dolma, some salad, and then topped with two sauces of your choice. It was actually quite good, but got me wondering if such a thing is actually found in Turkey, or is a result of the Swedish desire to serve everything in burger form...?

For more info on Hötorgshallen (only in Swedish), go here.

Nystekt Strömming

Ironically, Swedish food can sometimes be a bit difficult to find here in Stockholm. The fish-and-potatoes diet that most Swedes' grandparents grew up with is seen as woefully old-fashioned compared to the more popular tapas, Mexican, sushi and Italian cuisines that are found on every street in the city. I think this is a pity as there really are some wonderful traditional dishes here. In particular I absolutely love the breads, from the cracker-like knäckebröd to the rye-laden limpor, and am fascinated by the variety of fish dishes; pickled herring, baked salmon, smoked eel, etc. Thus I was fortunate when upon exiting Slussen subway station on Södermalm I came across the stall pictured above that combined the two. Nystekt strömming means "freshly fried herring", a traditional Swedish dish that at this stall is served both traditionally and with a modern touch.

After a long wait (I guess people do like this kind of food--why isn't there more?), I ordered a knäckis, which takes the form of a pizza slice-sized hunk of knäckebröd topped with two fillets of the fried herring, lightly pickled slices of cucumber, red onion and parsley:

This is the "snack" version and cost 27 kronor, but the herring is also available as a heartier plate along with mashed potatoes and a salad. For those who cannot break themselves away from American-style fast food, there is also a bizarre-sounding "herring burger".

According to this site, the owners, Tommy and Viveka, have been selling nystekt strömming at Slussen since 1991. When asked if they ever get tired of fish they replied, "No. If you work here you eat herring every day." Sounds good to me.

Nystekt Strömming stall
Slussen subway station
11-6

Tourists or locals?

Saluhallen, Östermalm, Stockholm, Sweden.

Sometimes you never can tell.

A welcome back kebab

I'm back in Stockholm, Sweden, one of my three "hometowns". I lived here as a teenager and have been back and forth quite a few times over the years. Oddly enough, I actually have more friends here in Stockholm than in America, so it always feels great and somehow familiar to come back.

I wasn't particularly interested in food when I was living here, but one thing that left a strong impression was the very un-Swedish (yet very Swedish) kebab. This kind of food may seem common to most Europeans nowadays, but I'd never come across the stuff growing up in Oregon, and at the time it seemed very exotic. My friends and I swore by Kebab Kungen ("The Kebab King"), a hole-in-the-wall (by Swedish standards, anyway) place in Södermalm that served what were the cheapest kebabs in town (I think they were 19 kronor back then?). I recall skipping gymansiet (the Swedish equivalent of high school) to come down there, fill up on kebab, then explore the city. Nostalgia and a desire for chippped beef brought me back to Götgatan, only to find that Kebab Kungen has been replaced by a shop selling sporting equipment for children or some other rubbish... I was forced to walk directly across the street to Jerusalem Kebab, Kebab Kungen's direct competitor, and a place I had seen countless times, but had never entered on strict moral grounds:

Like most (all?) kebab places in Stockholm, you can order beef or chicken kebab, in a pita or on a plate (with pommes frites), in addition to pitas or plates of felafel or deep-fried eggplant:

I've always wanted to try the other dishes (does anybody ever order anything but kebab?), but haven't got around to it yet... My 25 kronor (125 baht, about 2 US dollars) got me a kebab i bröd with everything. The bulging pita (pictured above) was filled with a generous amount of salty, spiced chipped beef, which was covered with lettuce, red onions, bell pepper, yogurt and chili sauce, and my personal fav, pickled chilies. It's messy, but absoultely delicious, and by Stockholm standards, very cheap.

Incidentally, in trying to find the address for this place I came across a site called Allt om kebab ("Everything about kebab"), which looks to be a great reference for kebab fans in Stockholm, but which unfortunately appears to be down at the moment.

By the way, är det nån som vet vad hände med Kebab Kungen?

Jerusalem Kebab
Götgatan 59 (near Medborgarplatsen subway station)

Bible thumpers and dreadlocks

I happened to find myself on Khao San Road again last night, and although I was running to meet friends, had to stop and take a couple pics:

Christian missionaries

Hair care, Khao San-style

Face - Hand - Back - Foot

Last night was the opening for Surat Osathanugrah's exhibition Face - Hand - Back - Foot. Surat is a very wealthy and well-known Thai businessman, but he's also a talented photographer. Apparently he was more or less forced to take the family business, but always harboured ambitions to become a photographer. Now he's retired and has time to pursue his true passion.

The exhibition was held at Kathmandu, Bangkok's only 100% photography gallery, which is owned by Manit Sriwanichpoom, one of the country's most well-known artists. The gallery is located in a restored Chinese shophouse, and the downstairs showcases Manit's own work:

and the upper level is where the temporary exhibitions are held:

Incidentally, in about a year from now I'm actually going to have my own exhibition at Kathmandu, but more on that later...

Ultra-freaking-wide

Siam Paragon taken with the ultra-wide Nikon 10.5 f/2.8 DX.

I've always liked wide lenses, but with Nikon's less-than-full-frame digital factor of 1.5 means that most wide lenses are never quite wide enough. Until now. Stick this digital-only fisheye on the Nikon D200 and you've yourself got the equivalent of a 16mm on a full-frame camera. I bought this lens mainly so I could do some insane-wide landscapes of Stockholm, but suspect it will provide endless hours of fun far into the future. After I get back to Bangkok I hope to obtain the DxO Optics Pro software to straighten out all those crazy lines. One can do the same thing in Photoshop, but apparently this program is quite sharp and easy to use. Anybody have any other software recs?

Detailed info and lots of example pics taken with this lens can be found here.

My new blog

I'm proud to announce that I've recently started up a new blog. The Old Main Drag is where I'll be dumping my non food-related photos, in particular the "street" photography that I've been obsessed with as of late. The blog is embarrassingly bare-bones at this point, but I wanted to get it up ASAP as I'm heading off for my second and third homes of Oregon, USA and Stockholm, Sweden in a couple days, and wanted a platform from which to post images from these places.

Welcome!

I've been wanting to do a photo blog for a while, and finally, here it is. Actually setting up the blog was a matter of a few moments; the hard part was thinking of a name. The one I finally decided on actually comes from a Pogues song that happened to come on while I happened to be sitting trying to think of a name... I've been obsessed with the "street" photography of masters such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt, and thought the name reflected something of the nature of their work, as well as the essence of the images I hope to show here. These are going to be works in progress; the pics that I snap on the way to a job, or something I'm proud of that will probably never sell, but that I like nonetheless. My main inspiration for this concept has got to be David Alan Harvey. Despite being a Magnum photographer and filing a constant stream of stories with National Geographic, the guy still finds time to add to his own blog, At Home with David Alan Harvey. At present she's looking pretty sorry--I'll get a custom banner and add some links hopefully sooner rather than later. For now I just wanted to get it up as soon as possible, as in a matter of hours I'm to leave for Stockholm, Sweden, then on to my home Oregon, and wanted a place to post images from both of these locations. For now I'll start in my third "hometown" of Bangkok. I Happened to be down on Khao San Road, Bangkok's famous backpacker district, the other night. I was just passing through, but quickly realized that this place warrants a full-scale photographic expedition, something I'll certainly do when I come back in May.

After people watching for a while we stopped in at Brick Bar, a place where, oddly enough for Khao San Road, I was virtually the only white guy. We had come to see Teddy Ska, a Thai band that had been recommended.

The band was really fun (what other band in Bangkok has a violin soloist and a horn section?), and really got the crowd going:

Tha Din Daeng pork satay

It's good to know people in other parts of town. Today my friend Cherry, a resident of Thonburi, took me to Tha Din Daeng, a part of her 'hood I would otherwise never have visited. According to Cherry, this area is known for its vendors who sell satay, the Indo/Malaysian dish of grilled skewers of meat.

There are several satay vendors along this relatively short street, and they serve from lunch until late evening, and use some of the longest grills I've ever seen:

I can't even imagine how hot it must be to grill food over coals on an April day in Thailand:

We sat down at the first shop we came to and ordered 20 sticks. As shown in the first pic, pork satay is served with the famous peanut sauce (which, incidentally, many people in America mistakenly associate with Thai food) and shallots, cucumbers and sliced chilies in a vinegar/syrup mixture. In Thailand satay is also often served with grilled white bread:

something I'd be curious to know the origin of.

Everything was great, although I must admit that I prefer the Malaysian practice of furiously fanning the flames so that the satay have a smokier flavour. Cherry, on the other hand, seemed to find no fault with it:

Thaa Din Daeng Pork Satay (Google Maps link)
Tha Thaa Din Daeng, Thonburi
Lunch & dinner